War crimes in Slovenia - an account by Mario Casanuova

Mario Casanuova, a medical lieutenant in the 22nd Infantry Division "Cacciatori delle Alpi", thus describes in his memoirs the execution of fourteen suspected partisans from the Slovenian villages of Case, Skrjlje and Dolica Golo, rounded up during Operation "Primavera" ("Spring") on Mount Krim in July 1942:

"Fourteen men were brought out of the town. They were all rather calm, poor fellows. They probably thought they would be recruited for digging work. We marched for about one kilometre, and during this time I was able to find the father of the two children and the other young man, whose documents I had taken. I returned them to him, ordering him to go back immediately, as fast as he could. They probably understood, because they darted away and were never seen again. But nobody paid attention, because everyone, officers and soldiers, had become completely brutalized. Nobody seemed resolved to do the deed, but at one point along the path we were walking we found a raised space, almost looking like a stage. There we stopped: thirty reluctant soldiers were lined up along the “proscenium” and the twelve unfortunate fellows were lined up at the other end, on their knees, with their backs to the firing squad. And then all hell broke loose. They all screamed in high-pitched voices, terrified, without even the strength to try to escape, which would have certainly been successful for some of them, as none of use really wanted to kill them. They yelled: “Long live Italy, long live Mussolini, officers, carabinieri”, and their voices became more and more piercing. In the end those weren’t screams anymore, they were shrieks of animals who had gone mad with fear. Suddenly the voices were silenced by the discharge of the rifles, that we felt in our stomach like a great punch. Few fell, because the soldiers did not want to hit, did not want to kill. The screams started once again, now mixed with the moans of the wounded. Another discharge, some more fell. At the third discharge, finally, all were on the ground; officers and soldiers vanished, as if by magic. There was so much blood and so much moaning on the stage of that hideous tragedy and many of the executed tried to lift themselves on their arms with difficulty, like lizards whose spines had been broken. I do not know what happened next. Everyone had left the place where the slaughter had taken place. Only I was left, and as if in a dream, without understanding how I had gotten there, I found myself on the stage, gun in hand. I fired. I shot the nearest one of those who had raised their head in the back of the head, and it was like I had given him a great punch. The head fell abruptly, and the color of his face abruptly changed from the pink of the living to the grey of the dead. I fired all the rounds I had in my gun, and then, completely out of my mind, I kept pulling the trigger of the empty gun. I have no memories of the aftermath. They told me that I had remained stunned and that I had silently walked with the others, for hours, without speaking and with eyes like glass."